Where to Stay in Portobello, Edinburgh: Hotels & B&Bs by the Beach (2026)

Best for waking up beside the sand, with breakfast in the price. Joppa. Joppa is the eastern, quieter end of Portobello's beach: Victorian villas and terraces along Joppa Road, with the rocky shore at Joppa beyond the sand and the 26 running along the main road at least every 12 minutes by day. The two B&Bs here are the closest beds to the sea you can book direct, and both are run by their owners. The trade-offs are the ones small houses always carry: two rooms at one and three or four at the other, multi-night minimums, firm cancellation terms and a check-in window rather than a front desk. Three names you'll still see on the map at this end are gone. The Abercorn Guest House on Abercorn Terrace has closed permanently, though its 136 Google reviews still pull people in; Joppa Turrets on Lower Joppa, the guesthouse people search for by name, no longer has a website or any way to book; and the Dalriada on the Promenade, a hotel and then a bar, shut by 2020 and has since been sold for conversion into a private house.

Seabreeze Guest House is the B&B I'd book at the Joppa end, and the cheapest sea view of the six: two rooms in an owner-run house on Seaview Terrace, with the Forth in the bay window of the king room and the 26 stop at Coillesdene Drive a minute from the door (31 minutes to Princes Street). The guesthouse says the sand is a few steps away; the paved promenade is five minutes' walk at Morton Street, the Promenade at Bath Street, the busy middle of the beach, is a 17-minute walk, and the Town Hall stop 20. It takes no bookings from 6 to 14 November; for the next midweek stay, Tuesday 17 to Friday 20 November, the King Size Room with Sea View is £99 a night for two with a self-service continental breakfast, the Small Double £95, both on the house's three-night minimum, so £297 for the stay.

Know the rules before you book, because they're strict for a two-room house. Check-in is between 4pm and 6pm unless you've arranged otherwise, a night's deposit is taken, and cancelling inside a week costs the whole booking. The Small Double's bathroom is private but down the hall, not en suite, and the room is snug for two, so take the King room if there's a choice. Breakfast is continental only, put out for you to help yourself. Parking is free on the street outside, there are no pets, and the calendar is shut from 6 to 14 November and for the first four weeks of December 2026, reopening for Hogmanay. Google reviewers keep saying the same two things: Salma, the host, and the bus stop next to the house.

Straven Guesthouse is the better-known of the two and the most-reviewed of the small houses, 4.9 on Google from 80 reviews: a Victorian villa on Brunstane Road North, a quiet street that runs from Joppa Road straight down to the beach, with the promenade one minute from the gate at the foot of the street. Three or four en-suite rooms (the site says three, its booking engine sells four), two of them on the ground floor, a guest lounge with a fridge and a coffee machine, and a breakfast that goes well beyond the usual full Scottish, with porridge, Bircher muesli, pastries, Menemen, Upma and Shakshuka on the menu. The 26's Brunstane Road North stop is on Joppa Road at the top of the street, three minutes away, and the ride to Princes Street is 28 minutes; the Promenade at Bath Street is a 10-minute walk along the sand or the prom, the Town Hall stop 13.

The catch is the calendar. The guesthouse's own booking engine is closed from 5 October to 27 December 2026 and again from 6 January to 23 March 2027, so a November stay isn't on sale at all, and over Hogmanay only the single-occupancy double was left (£137 a night for one adult, five-night minimum). The first dates it sells to two people are spring 2027: the Superking Sea View room from 24 March at £161 a night and the first-floor double from early April at £145, breakfast included, on three- or four-night minimums. Book direct and two nights get 10% off, three or more 15%. Two more things: the terms are firm (full payment at booking, a refund minus the first night with a week's notice, nothing inside that), and it takes no under-12s and no pets, with a shallow step, a sloped path and four more steps to the front door. Ask for the first-floor Superking Sea View Room if the stairs are fine, and one of the two ground-floor rooms if they aren't. For a spring or summer week by the beach, it's the one I'd choose.

Best for a whole house a few minutes from the sand. Portobello proper. The streets between the High Street and the Promenade (Bath Street, Straiton Place, Bellfield, Rathbone Place and the lanes off Pipe Street) are where you'd expect the hotels to be, and there are none. What there is, is holiday flats: Booking.com and Airbnb list dozens, mostly anonymous one- and two-bedroom lets with no business behind them that you could phone. The one you'll see most, the Porty Beach House on Rathbone Place, is a registered company's ground-floor two-bedroom flat with a hot tub, three minutes from the Bath Street prom, but it lives only on Booking.com (£283 a night non-refundable or £313 with free cancellation, for three nights in mid-November) and has no website of its own, so Booking.com is the only way to book it. The old seafront guesthouse at 33 Straiton Place, which traded as the Havrist, then the Portobello Guest House, then the Beachfront B&B, is closed. That leaves one house you can book direct.

DYNASTAYS is that house: a three-bedroom semi in William Jameson Place, a cul-de-sac at the west end of Portobello two minutes' walk from the Promenade at Pipe Street and six from the Promenade at Bath Street, let whole by its owners through their own website. King, double and single bedrooms upstairs, a family bathroom plus two WCs, a full kitchen, an enclosed garden and a driveway for two cars. The 26 stops on Bridge Street three minutes away and takes 24 minutes to Princes Street; the Town Hall stop is six minutes on foot.

It's a particular kind of booking. Adults only (18 and over), up to two dogs welcome, a three-night minimum, and the price is for the house: £1,547 for the three nights from Tuesday 10 November 2026, about £516 a night, plus a £500 damage deposit you get back, with free cancellation up to 60 days before arrival. For a couple that's expensive; for four or five adults sharing it's £103 to £129 a head a night with a kitchen, which is the way to think about it. There are two steps at the front door and stairs to every bedroom, so it's no good for anyone who can't manage them, and the owners' site says it sleeps six in one place and five in another, so ask before you book for six. It has no Google reviews yet, so you're trusting the owners' own listing.

Best for a pool, a lift and a car park, or the cheapest bed. The Milton Road edge. Milton Road East is the A199, the old A1 into Edinburgh, running along the back of Joppa, a long straight road of villas and bus stops, and it's where Portobello's one real hotel and its budget guesthouse sit, with the self-catering cottage on Duddingston Park a few streets west. The trade-off is the same for all three: the beach is an 18-to-23-minute walk, and the way into town is the 113 or 124 along Milton Road (East Coast Buses, 18 to 22 minutes to Princes Street, £2.40 single) or the 44, not the 26, whose nearest stop is a ten-minute walk north of the hotel at Morton Street. In its favour, Brunstane station is eight minutes from the hotel, and ScotRail runs to Waverley in ten minutes about every half hour. Two more names from older lists have gone: Aaran Lodge on Milton Road East has lost its website (the domain is parked for sale) and has no booking channel left, and Milton House on Duddingston Crescent, a well-liked owner-run B&B, has no website or listed phone number, so there's no way to book it. The Dorstan, which turns up in searches for Portobello guesthouses, is in Prestonfield, over three miles away by road, and isn't Portobello at all.

Kings Manor Hotel is the only hotel in Portobello, and my pick for a family or anyone who wants a lift, a front desk and somewhere to swim that isn't the Forth in November. It's a 100-room Best Western on Milton Road East with the Fountain leisure club free to guests: a 20-metre pool, spa bath, sauna, steam room, gym and a tennis court, open from 6:30am on weekdays. Eighteen rooms are on the ground floor and two are adapted for wheelchairs (those two are booked by phone), under-12s stay and eat breakfast free with two adults, children can use the pool from 9am to 7pm on weekdays and 8am to 7pm at weekends with one adult for every two under-15s, and dogs are welcome in pre-booked rooms, where the hotel says a charge will apply. The beach is the catch: the Promenade at Morton Street is an 11-minute walk, the Promenade at Bath Street 23, and the Town Hall stop 24. For town, the 113 and 124 stop at Brunstane Bank a minute away (22 minutes to Princes Street), or walk eight minutes to Brunstane station for the train.

For 10 November the Cosy Double was £115 room only on a flexible pay-at-hotel rate, £145 with breakfast; a Standard Double was £121.50 non-refundable (£148.50 with breakfast) or £135 flexible (£165 with breakfast). The honest trade-offs come straight from recent Google reviews: the building reads dated (one called the whole hotel 'extremely outdated and tired'), breakfast is nothing special, the bar shuts around 10:50pm, and the car park is £8 for 24 hours even though the hotel's own site only says 'ample car parking'. It also hosts weddings in a suite that takes 120, so ask for a room away from the function side on a Saturday, and for a Club room or a quiet floor if you're a light sleeper. For the pool and the parking at this price, it earns its place.

Aynetree Guest House is the cheapest room you can book direct in Portobello, £88 for a ground-floor en-suite double on a Tuesday in November, and you should know exactly what that buys. It's a big Victorian house on Duddingston Crescent, a quiet residential curve just off Milton Road, with free parking for up to six cars and secure motorcycle parking, which is why it's popular with bikers and drivers. Every rate is room only and non-refundable, there is no breakfast, and it runs largely self-service: reviewers describe arriving to no staff and rooms that aren't cleaned daily, and the 3.9 Google rating from 223 reviews reflects that inconsistency. The 113 and 124 stop at Portobello High School two minutes away (18 to 19 minutes to Princes Street); the Promenade at Bath Street is a 22-minute walk, the Town Hall stop 19, Brunstane station 13.

Take it for the price and the parking, not the service. Ask for one of the five ground-floor doubles if stairs are a problem (there's also an accessible family room with a wet room, £127), and skip the 'Double with private bathroom', whose bathroom is down a few stairs. The guesthouse's own site can't decide whether it has six rooms or eighteen (the rooms page lists eighteen), and a summer guest found the six-space car park held three or four cars, so if the car matters, say so when you book. For a driver on a budget who'll eat breakfast on the High Street, it does the job.

St Margaret's Cottage is the one to book for a week with a kitchen: a two-bedroom detached cottage on Duddingston Park, a residential street off Milton Road, let by its owners through their own site with a driveway space, an enclosed west-facing patio garden and a properly fitted kitchen (dishwasher, washing machine, coffee maker). It sleeps four in a double and a twin upstairs, with the bathroom up there too and a WC downstairs. The Promenade at Bath Street is an 18-minute walk, the Town Hall stop 14, and the 113 stops at Portobello High School four minutes away (18 minutes to Princes Street).

The 2026 tariff is on the site: £175 a night in November with a three-night minimum (£525 for the stay; £1,100 for a week), plus a £50 cleaning fee, a £100 booking deposit and a £100 security deposit you get back. There's no online engine; you email your dates, get a booking form and have 24 hours to return it. One well-behaved dog is welcome for £25 a stay. Minimums move with the season, three to seven nights, and Christmas and New Year need four. Reviewers mention the shower, the fairy lights in the garden and the 44 bus round the corner. Not a base for a one-night stop, but for a family week by the beach with a car it's the one I'd book.